It used to be that social comparison was limited to your immediate environment—your neighbors, friends, coworkers. You could see what people around you had or did, and there was a natural limit to how far comparison could go. If the family next door bought a new car, you’d notice, but you knew their circumstances, their lifestyle, their struggles. This grounded your sense of what was appropriate, attainable, and realistic.

Now, we live in a globalized society, where social media has shattered that local bubble. We can compare ourselves not just to the people in our immediate community, but to anyone—celebrities, influencers, strangers—often without the necessary context. We only see their curated highlight reels, which are stripped of the complexities of their real lives. What’s more, social media encourages this behavior by feeding us a constant stream of “perfect” moments, making it harder to resist.

Take a recent Reddit post that caught my attention: a man wrote about his wife requesting a “push present” after the birth of their child. At first, he assumed she was joking. But soon, he realized she was serious—and she wasn’t asking for something small. Influenced by social media posts, where women flaunted gifts like cars, vacations, and even body tattoos, his wife felt entitled to a grand gesture. And why not? If others are receiving these things, why shouldn’t she?

But this points to something deeper: the wife had seen these extravagant gifts and accepted them as the new normal, without contextualizing her own situation. She wasn’t comparing herself to the people around her—she was comparing herself to social media personalities whose lives and circumstances may be vastly different from her own.

This is the new reality of keeping up with the Joneses. It’s not about looking next door anymore—it’s about looking at the digital next door and digital views of what’s normal, what’s deserved, and what’s valuable. The natural hierarchy of a community, where only so many people can be the top tier family, no longer exists. Instead, everyone is comparing themselves to an unrealistic, global standard that has warped social expectations.

Materialism, ever on the rise, has been amplified by social media’s glamorization of short-term gratification. The push for consumption—newer gadgets, shinier toys, or grand gestures like push presents—has become a way of life for many. People now seek validation not from the intrinsic value of their actions, such as childbirth, but from external markers of worth, often in the form of material possessions or social approval.

In this story, the act of childbirth, a naturally meaningful and profound experience, became secondary to the social construct of a push present. In today’s digital world, social norms rapidly evolve, and our material desires rise to the comparisons we see online. The woman’s desire for a push present isn’t unusual, today—it’s an evolution of social comparison. Personal milestones, like having a child, have become mixed with social pressures, making it hard to separate our natural desires from our unnatural expectations.